Malaysiakini recently reported on a study by the Centre for Independent Journalism which analysed the election coverage by the mainstream papers:

According to the report, The Star was the most partial among English newspapers in terms of elections reporting in favour of Barisan Nasional (BN) with 63.12 percent its election reports being ‘pro-BN’.

The daily was also found to have had the smallest proportion (5.5 percent) of pro-Opposition reports, while 31.3 percent of its stories were ‘neutral’.

…

While the NST had slightly more space (5.9 percent) for pro-Opposition stories than the Star, it had only slightly more (31.31 percent) of neutral stories.

In terms of pro-BN stories, NST is up there with Star as having 60.29 percent of its stories being in favour of the ruling coalition.

…

The Sun was found to have dedicated the most space (40.87 percent) in its pages to ‘neutral stories’. Just over 16 percent of its stories, furthermore, could be described as pro-Opposition.

Pro-BN stories, however, still dominated the free newspaper with just under 43 percent.

This phenomenon has been called “shadow boxing“, e.g. the papers would print articles bashing Anwar Ibrahim over something he had said - only that since the papers had been carefully obliterating any coverage of Anwar, no one actually knew what Anwar had been talking about.

In the aftermath of the tsunami, there were many people who simply found that they did not know anything about most of the opposition MPs. This was a direct result of the newspapers abdicating their responsibility to the public.

To be fair, the coverage given to the Opposition government-in-waiting has “improved” in leaps and bounds. The Star even quickly started a daily “Know your ADUN” section. But the jury is very much out on whether this is the result of genuine soul-searching, like what Gerakan is doing; or whether this is more in line with Samy’s laughable flipflops on Hindraf.

Wong Chun Wai whined about why the MSM’s live election coverage lost out to their online competitors:

The websites of mainstream newspapers had an even tougher time, being overly cautious on accuracy, particularly on results, and not wanting to rely too much on unconfirmed news.

In the end, the alternative media scored better as it did not have to worry too much about accuracy. An example was the newsflash on the purported 14 unopened ballot boxes in Lembah Pantai, implying there would be rigging. The report turned out to be false.

A patently lame accusation, giving that the Star had been publishing full-page lies threats advertisements for BN - I would prefer a newsflash that is corrected in minutes over blatant propaganda!

His excuse makes no sense anyway - polling ballots are counted at the stations by representatives from each party, and forms are then issued. The media certainly had people at counting centers. Why would you offer “live” election coverage and then wait for official announcements anyway?

The Star also published the results of a survey commissioned by itself in collaboration with IIUM a week before the elections, claiming that newspapers were still the source of information for the public:

The newspaper is still the principal choice of media for Malaysians as their source of news and information, despite the rising popularity of Internet usage.

On the credibility of the Internet, The Star-IIUM election survey revealed that the gap is wide between those who ticked “totally disagree” and “totally agree.”

A total of 29% respondents totally disagreed about believing content on the Internet, but only 5% said they totally agreed with the notion that Internet content could be believed.

Internet penetration is also low among the 2,930 respondents, with 58% of them saying that they don’t surf the Internet at all, compared to 6% who use it daily.

On belief in Internet content, Malaysians were asked to give ratings from “totally disagree,” “disagree,” “agree,” and “totally agree.”

IIUM’s Prof Datuk Dr Syed Arabi Idid said the poll results were highly revealing of the Malaysians’ distrust of the Internet, and agreed that the newspaper and television were still the main information staple of the public.

“Generally, the poll revealed that Malaysians have doubts about information published on the Internet,” he added.

Yes, I’m laughing too. Recently however, NST published another survey with “slightly” different findings [backup link]:

In the study, 64.5 per cent of those aged from 21 to 30 years trusted blogs and online media for reliable information compared with 23.1 per cent who relied on the television and only 12.4 per cent on newspapers.

Of those between 31 and 40 years, 61.7 per cent believed that the information in the blogs and online media was true while 23.5 trusted the television and 14.8 per cent the newspapers.

One wonders how Professor Datuk Doctor Syed Arabi Idid conducts surveys with a 60% error margin.

Did the media believe their own spin? It would seem so, judging from ex-Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin’s last press conference, where he obstinately, pitifully, quotes the findings from the Star’s poll:

Scandals and scoops come and go, but at the end of the day the foundation of a paper is its credibility. Without that, a paper is nothing. When you have the trust of only 15% of your readers, it’s time for serious soul-searching. That the predicament of the MSM mirrors that of BN speaks volumes of how politicized our media is. And the solution is the same. Change!

Test yourself: You hear of a riot in Penang. Do you

1. Go to Malaysiakini
2. Go to Malaysia Today
3. Go to [other blog of choice]
4. Google it
5. Turn on the TV for the hourly bulletin
6. Buy the newspaper, or visit their website.

When you think about it, we are doing Malaysiakini, Malaysia Today, and the numerous unemployed women out there a disservice when we call the newspapers the “mainstream media”. Are they still “mainstream” when no one takes them seriously? Perhaps, like the ex-BN governments in five states, we should now call them the “alternative media”.

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